


Cradle Song

by pennysparkle



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Accomplice Ending (Persona 4), Angst, Genderfluid Character, Ideation of Death, Mental Health Issues, Mild Gore, Other, Self-Blame, abuse mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-14
Updated: 2015-10-14
Packaged: 2018-04-26 10:11:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5000773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pennysparkle/pseuds/pennysparkle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Souji had seen the devil once. It was years and years ago now, in a book he'd checked out from the library when he was too young to have his hands on such a thing. He could remember his parents getting angry at him for trying to hide it from them, and they'd gotten rid of it soon afterward. But that full-paged picture stuck in his mind: an unnatural figure, red-skulled and grinning, with large, sharp teeth, black eyes receding within the sockets, and at the time, he had been frightened enough of it that it gave him nightmares.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cradle Song

**Author's Note:**

> [Jack](http://milesupshur.tumblr.com) and I are doing a week of P4 prompts! Today's was "creepy."

Souji had seen the devil once. It was years and years ago now, in a book he'd checked out from the library when he was too young to have his hands on such a thing. He could remember his parents getting angry at him for trying to hide it from them, and they'd gotten rid of it soon afterward. But that full-paged picture stuck in his mind: an unnatural figure, red-skulled and grinning, with large, sharp teeth, black eyes receding within the sockets, and at the time, he had been frightened enough of it that it gave him nightmares.

He couldn't have gone to his parents about them. They'd sigh and dole out 'I told you so's, brush him off and tell him to go back to sleep, and so he remembered lying in bed each night, trying so hard to convince himself that none of it was actually  _real_. It was just a picture. Maybe devils didn't even exist.

But none of that mattered in the end; it may as well have been a premonition of things to come, of the thing that stared back at him from the mirror, no longer recognizable as himself. He might not have  _looked_ exactly like that thing, but in essence, weren't they one and the same? Because there was nothing left inside of him anymore. Nothing man, woman, or in between, nothing kind, nothing loving, nothing  _good_ —all he could claim to be was a  _monster_.

He lamented that, and supposed that even devils felt sadness, perhaps more than anyone. But tears couldn't put out the superimposition of fire that seemed to blur out his face half the time, a constant reminder of the choices he'd made. A metaphorical fire, licking his bones clean of flesh, liquefying his eyes and his brain. Unseeing, unfeeling—but it'd never burn away this one sin. That would be housed forever within some unerasable part of himself, deep as the marrow of his bones.

He could have backed away. He could have taken the evidence while it was in his grasp and ran faster than Adachi could, but what had he done instead? He'd taken the lighter and burned it. He'd robbed Inaba of closure, and by doing so, robbed himself of humanity.

And all because of  _him_. Maybe he was a devil too, or something worse. Something much, much worse, that could sink its claws into another person and twist, rending body and mind and reworking it again into something grotesque and broken, pained, cowering.

Still, it couldn't all be blamed on Adachi. Souji had made the choice; in the end, the crime weighed just as heavily on his own shoulders. And that was all there was to it.

The light over the sink flickered once, twice,  _plink, plink_ — _fzzt_. His eyes lifted from their unfocused stare to look at it. It'd have to be replaced sooner or later, but he'd told himself that for several weeks by this point, and he still hadn't done it. Neither had Dojima.

When it steadied itself, it cast the bathroom in a dim yellow-green glow, like a bruise that had healed halfway before being poked and prodded into something even uglier. Water dripped endlessly from the tap; at night, Souji could count the seconds by it or turn it into a song, except for the few moments when it was miraculously quiet. The silence at that point frightened him. He always held his breath until it started dripping again, tapping against the porcelain and numbing the cacophony in his head.

With a sigh, he turned the faucet on and splashed his face with cold water, enough to shock him awake a little more. He'd need it, because at three in the morning, the phone would ring. By then the fog would be so heavy outside that it'd press against the windows, seeking to come in, terrorizing him for what he'd done. He deserved it. And because he knew that, he'd answer the phone, and the devil on the other end would say, "Come outside," and he would.

He'd walk down to the figure that waited for him in the fog every few nights. By a telephone pole at the end of the street Adachi would stand, and even if it  _weren't_ three in the morning, it would be an eerie sight. People didn't bother much with coming outside these days, after all. Most parents had withdrawn their children from school, and then locked themselves up inside, venturing out only for food. The fact that the murders had continued on was even more of a deterrent, so someone that could stomach being out here was a rarity, and all the more intimidating for it.

There was so little of the town as it used to be. Trains had stopped running. Phones were faulty. Cars sputtered and died after too long in this kind of weather. Inaba was closing itself off from the rest of the world, Souji sealed forever inside along with the mistake he'd made. His own personal hell, complete with his torturer staring him down as he approached, the yellow fog parting for his body to move through it.

"Are you ever gonna stop looking so down, Souji-kun?" Adachi asked, sharp grin bright in the darkness.

He didn't justify that with an answer. Besides, everything from Adachi was a joke at Souji's expense, just like always.

They had to stand face-to-face to have any real visibility of each other in this haze. It was snowing, too, making everything even harder to see. The stuff was ugly and dirty, like ash, and looked unsettling in the fog. A flake landed on Souji's cheek, which made him jump.

"Ha! C'mon, you're jumping over some  _snow_?" Adachi scoffed. "You're the scariest thing there is here!"

It hurt to hear that, even though Souji knew it was the truth. He turned his head to the side, letting Adachi's words wash over him. Even now he could speak without end, cruel taunts meant to lodge under his skin. They did, needless to say. But Souji never said anything back. It was past that point now; he couldn't justify what he was, and he feared that if he spoke, something poisonous and ruinous would seep out, fog from his lips to finally strangle this world and lay it to rest. Wasn't it better, then, to stay silent? Even if to open his mouth might have meant an end to this slow death.

"Well... whatever. Let's go."

Souji knew their destination: Adachi's apartment, just like always. What he  _didn't_ know was why Adachi felt the need to walk him there and back—after all, it was like he said. Souji was the scariest thing here. Or maybe he was trying to ensure that Souji wouldn't attempt to escape. Not like he could. His train had been delayed and then canceled completely that day in March; he'd spent his birthday here, though at least he'd had a storebought cake from Junes. And everything since was a blur.

No matter how familiar Inaba had become during his year's stay, under the oppressive fog, it was strange and uncomfortable, TV antennas like leafless trees silhouetted in the sky, houses looming dark and unknown by the sides of the roads. Souji's only anchor was Adachi's hand at his back, leading him ever onward until they reached the complex.

It was difficult to climb the stairs in the darkness, Souji's feet unsure as they made their way up. But soon they were safely ensconced in Adachi's apartment. It was the same as ever, surprisingly—a beacon of normality with the lights on. Only when they went off did the walls close in around Souji, terrifying.

"I already ate," Adachi said into the silence—not that Souji ever asked after his nutritional intake anymore. "Let's go back to my room."

Souji nodded. Before now, it had always pained him to know that they had so little in common. Their friendship had first been based on his willingness to push through Adachi's indifferent exterior, and after that, the fluctuations of their  _relationship_ were based on whether or not he was willing to bend to Adachi's will in order to stay by his side.

There were so many things he'd done to keep him happy, but in the end, so little had been worth it. And now, with Souji's silence and the thoughts that tortured him from sun up to sun down, they had nothing except physicality. It was painful to realize that what Souji had wanted so badly less than a year ago had come down to something as empty and emotionless as this.

"Why don't you take your clothes off?" Adachi asked. It was unlikely that he'd care either way whether or not Souji did so, but he'd find another way to affect him instead, speak sundering words into his ear or whatever else he could think of. Anything to get a reaction.

So Souji started at the top, dragging off the sweater that hugged his narrow shoulders. There was nothing underneath; he'd taken his binder off earlier in the evening, ready to sleep, and besides, he knew Adachi appreciated this sort of view better anyway. Next went the track pants that served as pajamas, and after that, his underwear.

It left him bare and chilly in the middle of Adachi's bedroom, but he no longer felt vulnerable to expose himself like this to Adachi. If there was one thing that could be said for him, he'd never questioned this part of Souji; if he didn't see himself as a man or a woman, if he wanted to wear a dress that accentuated every soft curve one day and bind it all down into straight lines the next, if he spoke of it only to correct people swiftly and surely, it was no matter to Adachi. He was just happy to have a warm body to contort to his own pleasure, and now, to ease the loneliness that had settled upon Inaba.

"Come here," Adachi said.

Souji did. Barefooted and too tall, naked and straight-faced, he came to stand in front of Adachi, who drew a hand from the soft flesh of Souji's thigh up his side, thumb brushing over a nipple as he cupped his breast.

"You really are  _cute_ for someone so evil," said Adachi. His hand dropped away, moving low again to press between Souji's thighs, a touch that made him swallow hard.

It might have felt good, but when Adachi finally released him an hour or so later, exhausted and sweaty, there was nothing inside of him but blankness. Things always turned out this; nothing distracted him from the monster living inside of him, or at least never for long.

He'd fall asleep soon, for an hour or two. Sometimes he dreamed about the TV swallowing him up, shadows converging upon him and ripping away his life like they'd done to so many others, now. After the fog, they became more angry and plentiful, and before long, the Investigation Team couldn't fight them anymore. All they could do was watch as people started dying again, horrified and helpless—all because Souji let Adachi get away with it.

Speaking of the Investigation Team, they didn't have much reason to be around him anymore, and the truth was that he pushed them away in the first place. They didn't deserve to be around someone like him. Neither did he deserve the happiness of their company.

Death by shadow, though. It would be a fitting end, one he surely deserved. And that dream wasn't so much a nightmare; it  _couldn't_ be that if he was willing to accept such a fate.

He got up first after several minutes of silence between he and Adachi, went into the bathroom where he could clean himself up. There would be fingerprint-shaped bruises on his hips in the morning to replace the older, mottled ones. But this body barely felt like it belonged to him anymore, the same as the conscience inside of it.

The devil in the mirror looked back at him. Its eyes blinked once, twice, its mouth a thin, straight line. A moment passed before tears tracked down its cheeks, spilling wet and salty over its lips. Souji could taste them. He smiled, hollow and fake, and the devil smiled back—but from it, he could only see something insidious that caused him to turn sharply away, hand quickly covering his mouth.

"Hurry up and get out of there," Adachi called, banging on the door.

Souji unlocked it in a hurry, fearful in some strange way, needing to get out of there. He rushed into the bedroom instead, ignoring his reflection in the window and diving under the covers like a child frightened of the dark.

There he cowered until Adachi returned, but the arm he slung over Souji's waist in bed did nothing to comfort him. Only tiredness eventually dragged him to sleep, a sense of unease and dread paining him, but it was the same thing he felt every day. Dreams clouded his mind, and he could hear the dripping of a faucet. It was loud enough to drown him, filled his lungs with gasping breaths, but it smoothed away the rough edges of his thoughts, and in a way that was the most torturous song he could imagine.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr!](http://bunansa.tumblr.com)


End file.
